I’m old school when it comes to pizza. Cheese, sausage, pepperoni. That’s all the toppings anyone needs.
My thanks to **Cardigan **and **Biotop **for posts 27, 36 and 49, naturally.
Anyway, in the alternative military history we’ve been discussing, Col. MacArthur led his men into battle in the 1922 Battle of Blawnox despite the threats posed by thousands of Latvian iguanas and the looming volcanic eruption of nearby Mt. Bean. As to bagpipes, chewing gum and the Defenestration of Prague, perhaps the less said the better.
And on an unrelated note, it should go without saying that of *course *if you have a hankering for New Zealand cuisine, by all means, you should go there.
As far as this forum’s memes go, I’m not liking this alternate history crap. You’ve got lizards, bagpipes, volcanoes, math, it’s all over the place. Sometimes less is more.
Well, that’s just ridiculous. Alexander Kerensky was a lawyer, not a soldier. He would’ve had no chance leading a battle against the Bolsheviks – particularly if the Reds are going to attack with Komodo dragons!
And why would Scotland get involved in the Russian Civil War in the first place?
An amusing anecdote about Alexander Kerensky, when he led his troops against the Bolsheviks resources were scarce - especially food. They did get their hands on some cake though and he was forced to cut each piece into thirds to feed the troops. When asked how 1/3 plus 1/3 plus 1/3 can equal one he replied “The rest is on the knife.”
Of course iguanas need to eat just like any other living creature. And at the expense of belaboring the obvious, New Zealand has plenty of foods that they could subsist on. What in all of this, though, makes it any less likely that Col. MacArthur would have made an attack on Blawnox than if he’d bypassed it and headed straight for the volcano to begin with?
If I travel to New Zealand and buy an iguana, I’ve heard that they don’t need to eat more than once a year or so. Is that really true?
Well, I was gonna say those weren’t bagpipes, but this is alternate history, so facts are irrelevant.
This entire scenario is starting to play out like a game of Risk played out on a Rubik’s cube. It’s easier to keep track if you think of the opposing armies by color.
The Bolsheviks are RED
The Mensheviks are WHITE
The German Empire is GRAY
The French are BLUE
The Scots are BLACK (for the Black Watch regiment)
The Free State Irish are GREEN
There are only three things you have to keep straight:
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Use the color codings to set your armies correctly.
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Both the Irish and the Scots use bagpipes, so beware false signals.
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Only the Komodo dragons are poisonous. The monitor lizards are vicious, but not poisonous.
And I thought we agreed Mary Pickford would play the French symbol Marianne. Brigitte Helm is a German actress. Let her play someone Gray.
All the different military forces and their allegiances are starting to make my head hurt. There must be a better way to keep track of them.
And everything else aside, don’t you think Mary Pickford would be badly miscast as Napoleon Bonaparte? I’m not sure about Brigitte Helm, but I kind of hoped Ian Holm would return to the role, having done so well in it in Time Bandits.
Now you want to cast actors in the roles of historical figures? I think it’s a stupid idea, but possibly the most interesting thing about this alternate history crap. If we’re going to have Tim curry, he should not be an American, that’s just stupid. Maybe have him as George the 3rd, or Robin Hood, not as Lincoln.
So, in an alternate history, would having Tim Curry replace Lincoln have changed anything? I can’t see how.
Lastly, in addition to the other replacements previously mentioned (except Ed Begley Jr. as Stonewall Jackson - wth were you thinking IG?) I think I would have Tim Curry replace Lincoln. Think about it, he might have decided to announce the Emancipation Proclamation at an earlier time.
My thoughts:
Walter Groggins as General Ulysses Grant
Stephen Dorff as General George Custer
Ken Watanabe as Philip Sheridan
Ed Begley Jr. as Stonewall Jackson
Topher Grace as Private Edwin Francis Jemison
Sienna Miller as Florence Nightingale
I know it sounds a little crazy – Grace is a little older and Watanabe may be unexpected but think of the character work that these actors have done. It all fits in, I think.
That’s as may be. But who would you cast for a big-screen movie about Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign, maybe with flashbacks to the Crimean War and also Stonewall Jackson’s death shortly after the Battle of Chancellorsville?
I think there’s a germ of an idea here, but we need to work out some details.
Are we talking about making a big budget movie and then turning it into a video game, or are we making a video game and hoping a big studio wants to make a movie out of it?
And we’re way too early in the process to talk about casting. Besides, although I hate to throw cold water on anything, it’s true that Omar Sharif had a big, bushy mustache, but we can’t use him as Josef Stalin BECAUSE SHARIF DIED IN 2015!
My biggest problem is that I don’t think Americans care too much about the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Sure, Dr. Zhivago was a big hit, but who wants a remake of that, or Warren Beatty’s* Reds*?
Couldn’t we do something with the Civil War or World War I?
Dr. Zhivago? Amirite?
So we’re really doing this alternate history thing? What’s it about, the Russian revolution? The revolutionary war? Korea? Viet Nam? And did somebody say something about making a video game or movie about it? I’m out. I think you’re letting your ambition get way ahead of reality.
I suppose we could do some grand, sweeping epic about the Asian wars that goes all the way from Genghis Khan and the Mongols all the way through the Ottomans, the Russian Revolution, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, but unless we come up with some kind of alternative history story I’m damned if I can figure out how to fit in the French Revolution, the Civil War, and the Loch Ness monster!
Uuggh. Homework. (Don’t worry it’s not school homework! Just ‘homework’ that my bed-mate Sam has asked me to do in return for peach stickies)
I have to come up with a film script about the military history of the Asian continent. Needs to include the Bastille, confederates, and the loch ness monster if poss. Halp!